I was intrigued to get an opportunity to put Triumph’s exciting new middleweight Sports Tourer through its paces. Triumph touts this bike as their Swiss army knife road bike. Commute in the week, do a breakfast run or cross a continent, it’s all in a day’s work for this Tiger! Well, let’s see… I picked the bike up at Triumph’s Sandton store and headed back to Pretoria. It was 32-degree heat and bumper-to-bumper traffic. The Tiger was effortless to ride, with soft power off the bottom. The shift action at low revs is crisp and clean, albeit somewhat heavy. The bi-directional quick shifter is best used, as with all such systems, at higher revs. Irene asked my opinion on the Tiger when I got home, and I was non-committal; “it’s OK” was my response. “It certainly is handsome though!”
The Tiger, in my humble opinion, is a very good-looking motorcycle. From the front, it is slim and sleek, courtesy of Triumph’s new compact liquid-cooled, DOHC, 4-valve per cylinder triple motor. Especially striking are the bright ‘V’ shaped daytime running lights. The screen has single-handed adjustment by pulling up or down on an adjustment bar that is centrally located in the cockpit. Helping with airflow are side wind deflectors, which integrate beautifully into the fairing. The result is an adjustable bubble of still air which you can regulate in a jiffy based on ambient temperature.
An honourable mention must go to the exhaust work done on this Tiger. The main collector on modern exhausts is where most of the sound deadening takes place. In most cases, it is a welded industrial mass of stainless steel which the eye tries to treat as white noise. The rest of the bike is all bling and shiny, but then you have this abomination of a collector box ruining it all. Not so this Tiger. Triumph have shaped the collector in such a way that it complements the lower lines of the bike and painted it black. It now flows with the lines of the bike and is no longer an eyesore. In typical Triumph fashion, the fit and finish on the bike shows attention to detail and is beyond reproach.
The motor is unsurprisingly a signature Triumph triple; it is a 798 cc liquid-cooled DOHC unit pumping out 114 hp @ 10,750 rpm and 84 Nm of torque at 8,500 rpm. The bore of 78 mm and stroke of 55,7 mm, massively oversquare, hints at a rev-happy character, and so it is. Soft power off the bottom, morphing into a proper shove from around 4,500 rpm and beyond, getting stronger and stronger the higher it revs. When you lean on the throttle and use this motor as Triumph intended, it is most rewarding. You ask yourself why we are fed a diet of bloated, top-heavy and overweight behemoths that make huge amounts of generally excessive power which very few of us can use effectively. So why the non-committal comment to Irene? Let me explain.
Riding in heavy traffic back to Pretoria, I didn’t have the opportunity to in any way let the Tiger off the leash. Instead, I contended with a throttle that has a rather stiff return spring and a heavy shifting gearbox. I was hot and bothered and kind of ambivalent about the Triumph. It was only the next day that I got to sample the Tiger properly and in its natural environment. I had a 9:30 AM appointment in Barberton in the Lowveld. I left Pretoria with the glow of a rising sun in the east, bathing the landscape with the golden early morning glow that is instantly mood-elevating. The Tiger sipped on the deliciously crisp morning air, feeling taut and together as I made my way out of town, stopped for a quick sunrise pic, then headed to Bronkhorstspruit on the road from Bapsfontein. Slow early morning traffic was dispatched with disdain by the eager triple, which was at last being given an opportunity to strut its stuff.
Turning onto the freeway at Bronkhorstspruit, I set the cruise control on 134 km/h and settled down to assess the bike. The motor is smooth and the suspension firm but controlled. The front fork is a 41 mm upside-down Showa unit with damping adjustment for compression and rebound on alternate legs. The preload feels perfect, so no worries there. The back shock, also a Showa unit, has a handy remote preload adjustment knob for easy adjustment, and rebound damping adjustment too. It performed faultlessly. More on the steel tube chassis and suspension later. The seat is firm but nicely shaped and supportive. A seven-hour day in the saddle left me largely unruffled despite early morning cool and 33.5 degree heat on my return journey, testimony to the Tiger’s excellent overall comfort and effective heat management. Ergonomics are perfect, with an accessible 835 mm seat height.
The gearbox and throttle shortcomings that had been evident on the ride from Jo’burg where way less of a bother on the open road, largely negated by the quick shifter and cruise control. The cruise control does not have a resume function, but requires that you go back to your chosen speed, then engage it again. No issues there. The wind protection is top-class. In the early morning cool, I kept the screen in the highest position, creating a bubble of smooth air around me. In the heat of the day, I dropped the screen to its lowest setting, allowing more air to cool me. My body remained in smooth air, and my helmet was not tugged around at all, allowing comfortable progress despite the seriously hot weather. This bike will smash huge distances with minimum rider fatigue.
I topped up with fuel at MILLY’S and reset the trip meter to measure my consumption in a real-world touring application. What was already clear from monitoring the consumption readout on the combined LED and TFT display was the economy of the Tiger. With an 18,6-litre tank, it has a decent range. I will expand on that later. I turned off the freeway, rode through Machadodorp and descended the mountain to the T-junction with the Badplaas – Barberton Road. This is a beautiful piece of road which, over the years, has suffered huge storm damage, resulting in big sections of road being washed down the mountain. Thankfully, it has been repaired, albeit with some road imperfections. The traffic volume is extremely low, so it is the perfect place to turn up the wick a bit.
The Tiger is a fast motorcycle. Weighing in, fully fuelled, at 214 kg, it feels light and nimble and incredibly stable. So stable in fact that I looked for a steering damper, which I thought it must have, but no. Enter the chassis and suspension. When asked if the engine was the standout feature of the bike, my retort was “the engine is great, but the chassis and suspension are sublime!” The suspension boasts 150 mm of travel at both ends. Most bikes in this class have 120 mm of travel. I believe that the extra travel allows the wheels to stay connected in a way that is almost uncanny. Descending the Mkonjwe mountain pass to Barberton, I found just how good the suspension and chassis are. The road has been wrecked by heavy vehicles descending the pass on the brakes. Although repaired, it is extremely bumpy and resembles corrugations in places. The Tiger was absolutely awesome. It is so stable that it generates huge confidence. The agile handling and forgiving suspension allow rapid progress down a road that would tie most bikes in knots.
There are three power modes. Sport, Road and Rain. Sport has the most aggressive fuelling and is ok when you get on the gas in a hurry. Coming off the throttle feels as if the bike runs into toffee. On a twisty road, it is difficult to modulate the throttle for smooth and swift progress. Road mode to the rescue. Smooth and linear, it makes for a ride where you are not trying to compensate for an over-aggressive throttle but rather simply concentrate on the road ahead. Rain mode apparently makes for an even more allergic throttle response. Give me Road mode, delete the other two and drop the price. That would be my call, but the marketing powers have a different agenda. The same applies to the My Triumph Connectivity System with turn-by-turn navigation, Phone and music via Bluetooth. Enjoy it, Gen Z and others, I will leave it mute and enjoy the aural symphony of the triple motor singing its wonderful song, unbothered by the outside world, living in the moment, like it was before the world demanded that you be on call 24/7.
Speaking of the sound emitted by the beautiful and tidy exhaust tailpiece. At gentle throttle, the Tiger purrs along, totally below the radar. Lean hard on the throttle, and it becomes another beast. The purr grows into a bass wail, rising in pitch with the revs until it approaches redline with a banshee shriek. Intoxicating in the extreme! Sitting on a phone call, you would miss all that…imagine. Shut up, Dave, “methinks thou doth protest too much”. The brakes, two 310 mm discs with 4-pot callipers on the front and a single 255 mm 1-pot rear, are seamless in their operation. Powerful and predictable, they do the job at all speeds without fuss or bother. The five-spoke alloy wheels are shod with Michelin Pilot rubber, a 120/70×17 on the front and a 180/55×17 on the back. The superb tyres complement the chassis and suspension for unrivalled stability at all lean angles.
Let’s talk fuel consumption. After filling up at Milly’s, I blasted the Tiger down the mountain, with an easy 160 km/h on the speedo and a quick top-end blast on a totally level section of road, which saw 225 km/h on the speedo in no time. Settling back to cruising speed, I rode without consideration given to economy but rather revelling in the Tiger’s dynamic ability. The return journey was much of the same, until back on the freeway, where I re-engaged the cruise control at 134 km/h. My rationale is that it’s probably a true 129 km/h, which would let me off the hook in a speed trap where there is a 10 km/h grace. Luckily, my theory was never tested as I did not contend with any of the local constabulary. Filling up at the Ultra City, I was gobsmacked to note that despite my enthusiastic riding, the Tiger returned just on 21 km/L. Filling the bike after resuming the journey at cruising speed on the highway and before returning it to Triumph, it returned an amazing 24,8 km/L, good for over 440 k’s on a tank. Wow! Those are Honda NC 750 economy numbers! Wildly impressive!
There is a host of factory accessories available for the Tiger, including panniers and a top box. The test bike was fitted with hand wind deflectors and very neat fall-over protection, which bolts to the engine. The bike has self-cancelling flickers, which every single motorcycle should have regardless of price, but unfortunately doesn’t come with a main stand, which I consider imperative for any touring motorcycle for rear wheel and chain maintenance. With a base price of around R205,000, the Tiger Sport 800 offers reasonable value for money. Comfortable, fast and endowed with way above average chassis and suspension allied to good wind protection, it does all it says on the tin and then some. If you are in the market for a middle-weight sports touring motorcycle, you owe it to yourself to take the Tiger Sport 800 out for a proper trundle. You will not be disappointed.
Triumph Tiger Sport 800
For more information on the bike that we tested in this article, click on the link below…
